Touch of Darkness (25 page)

Two had black hair. One of those was stocky. Both were raw youths with sullen faces.

The one with the keys was blond, older, forty or fifty, and clearly in charge.

But all were tall, strongly muscled, with broad faces, high cheekbones, and strong chins. In fact, they all looked like Rurik. Her breath caught. She looked between them and the man who held her in his grip. The man who'd brought her to ecstasy. The man she trusted. Rurik . . . Rurik was one of
them.
Rurik was a Varinski.

Chapter 25

Rurik never even paused. He used Tasya's arm to toss her forward, toward his relatives.

Toward the Varinskis.

Startled, propelled, she stumbled and fell in the dirt, on her hands and knees. Above the buzzing in her ears, and the shock and pain that made her almost faint, she heard Rurik say, "Here she is. The one you missed."

She took a long breath and looked up at the thugs.

The one with the keys stopped tossing them. He straightened. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Does the name Dimitru mean anything to you dumbshits?" Rurik asked.

Tasya closed her eyes. She dropped her head. She
fought the pain, but she couldn't hide the truth from herself.

Rurik had broken her trust. No, not just her trust— her heart.

"I worked the Dimitru case." It was Key-Guy.

Rurik had courted her. He'd wooed her with every sweet word and every gallant deed. He had worked, and worked hard, to convince her that he was the one thing she'd no longer believed in—a human being on whom she could depend.

And he'd succeeded.

"That thing on the ground—" Rurik sounded cool and disinterested. "That is the Dimitru child."

She'd told him her deepest secret. In her life, she had never told anyone else about her family.

She'd given Rurik her trust. Hell, she'd given him her heart.

And for this. So he could betray her to his relatives for ... for what?

"Impossible," Key-Guy said. "We killed all the children. We burned the house."

"The governess took her away," Rurik informed
him.

"He's lying." It was one of the other kids, and while Key-Guy's voice was almost clear of an accent, this boy's voice was deep and very Russian.

"A woman and a four-year-old girl escaped from
the big, bad Varinskis. I wonder how the world would laugh if they knew."

She hadn't realized Rurik could sneer like that. She almost felt sorry for Key-Guy. Until Key-Guy walked over and lifted her chin. She jerked away.

He grabbed her hair and held her in place. He examined her face—and she examined his.

He had to be fifty if he'd been on the Dimitru raid, yet he was vital and alive, with hair so blond it was silver, and eyes the color of split pea soup.

He used her hair ruthlessly, turning her from side to side. He looked into her eyes. Then, most insultingly, he tilted her head sideways and leaned close to her throat. He snuffled her skin, then slid his tongue in a long, slow lick that started at her windpipe and ended behind her ear.

He stood up and stepped back. "He's right," he said in a flat tone. "She's a Dimitru." With a disgusted gesture, she wiped off his spit. He laughed and used his tongue in an extravaganza of lolling and licking at the air, like a dog gone mad with rabies.

She didn't care. She was going to die, anyway. "You'll like me soon enough," he promised, and switched his attention to Rurik. "What do we owe you for delivering this? Money? Jewels?" He flipped the keys again. "Or maybe we'll just let you live."

She dragged herself to her feet. She needed to pay attention. She had to listen to their plans for her, and if Rurik didn't convince them to immediately kill her, she had to figure a way out.

"You're not going to kill me," Rurik said. "I'm the one with the information you want. Remember?"

"What the hell information is that?" It was the boy with the black, black hair and pale skin. Rurik lifted his eyebrows at Key-Guy. Key-Guy shook his head.

"What?" the boy asked. "Are you keeping something from us?"

Key-Guy turned on the kid, and Tasya cpuld have sworn he gave a real dog's growl. Neat trick.

Key-Guy said, "Don't piss me off, Ilya, or I'll keep the pussy to myself."

"The pussy is mine," Rurik said, "and I'll keep her until I tire of her."

"Varinskis share," Ilya said. "I'm not a Varinski," Rurik answered. "You act like one. You're hunting treasure. You brought along a woman to trade for our goodwill and to relieve you. And, added bonus"—Key-Guy looked her over—"you never told her who you are. She's standing there and she still doesn't know what to think. Does she?"

"She knows very well what to think." Tasya
wished she didn't. Right now, ignorance would indeed have been bliss.

"Is that what's the matter with her?" The boy with the dark brown hair sounded incredulous. "You
lied
about being one of us?"

The Varinskis laughed, all three of them, thugs and murderers.

"I didn't lie about it. I told you. I am not one of
you."
Rurik sounded calm and in command.

Tasya refused to back away as he walked toward her.

"I'll keep the woman until I'm done with her, and I'll keep the treasure when I find it."

The treasure. The icon, he meant. The icon that was still in her pocket—and he didn't know it had been found.

He took her wrist.

"You make me sick." She twisted in his grasp.

He turned and walked away.

She tried to set her heels.

He dragged her behind him, bigger than her, indifferent to her struggles.

Then suddenly he shoved her aside.

As she stumbled away, she heard three hard smacks, and by the time she turned, Rurik had one of the boys flat on his face on the ground with his arm jacked up straight behind his back and his wrist twisted sideways.

She hadn't realized. . . . Well, she'd known Rurik
was capable of winning a fight, of course. Fool that she was, she'd depended on him for safety. But she hadn't realized exactly how deadly he was.

She'd worked with him, fought with him, traveled with him, slept with him—and she did not know Rurik Wilder at all.

Cautiously she ran her hand over the front pocket of her jeans. The icon was still there.

Thank God. Thank God, and Sister Maria Helvig, that Tasya hadn't thought to tell him she'd found the icon.

Now she had to figure out how to hide, the icon— or at least put it somewhere a little less obvious.

Rurik placed his booted foot in the middle of the kid's back. "What's your name?"

"Sergei."

Tasya glanced around. Everybody was intently watching Rurik.

"Didn't anybody ever teach you about a sucker maneuver?" Rurik asked. "Yeah."

Rurik twisted a little more. "What did you say to me?"

"Yes, sir. The Varinskis teach the sucker maneuver." Tasya slid her backpack off.

"And what is the sucker maneuver?" Rurik barked like a drill sergeant.'

Sergei responded like a raw recruit. "That's when someone turns his back to lure you into attacking, but when you do, he's prepared and puts you down."

As quietly as she could, Tasya inched the backpack's main zipper open.

"What do the Varinskis say should be done to suckers?" Clearly, Rurik knew the answers.

Sergei paused for a long, long time. "That's up to the discretion of the winner."

Tasya slid the icon out of her pocket and thrust it into the depths of the backpack, and twirled it like a caterpillar in a cocoon of clothing.

"My father said suckers should be put out of their misery." Rurik was toying with the kid. "So the question is—should I kill you now or give you a second chance?"

She zipped the bag closed. It wasn't good, but right now, it was the best she could do.

"Second chance," Sergei said.

"What?" Rurik twisted Sergei's arm so hard Tasya heard something break.

She flinched. She wanted to vomit.

"Second chance, sir." Sergei's voice squeaked. "Please, sir."

Rurik let him go and stepped away. "Either my father is lying, or the training has fallen short since his day."

The blond guy had not budged. He'd watched the

whole thing with no apparent interest. "He's in training."

"At what? Eighteen?"

"I'm twenty." Sergei sat up and resentfully held his wrist.

Had she been wrong? Hadn't Rurik broken a bone? Or were these guys so used to pain they were indifferent?

"A bird, right?" Rurik guessed.

"An owl," Sergei said proudly. "They brought me along to hunt you at night."

Key-Guy muttered a harsh Russian word.

"So your daytime vision's not too good. Thanks for the tip." Rurik shook his head in disgust. "You're going to have to do better than that, or you're going to get killed first thing."

"Poyesh' govna pechyonovo,"
Sergei said rudely.

Key-Guy and Ilya strolled forward, each from a different direction.

"Yes, he's a young fool and says too much," Key-Guy said, "but, smart Wilder boy, you
showed
too much."

They were both going to attack Rurik, Tasya realized. Two trained assassins were going to kill him— and try as she might to steel herself against him, she cared. Because she thought he would protect her at least a little . . . but also because she cared. Damn it, she didn't want to but she did.

Rurik stood loosely, waiting, while the guys circled him.

She watched, breathless, waiting for the first punch.

Instead, Ilya disappeared, leaving his clothes on the ground, and in a flash of feathers, a huge, black-and-white bird took his place. With a flap of its eight-foot wing span, the eagle took to the air.

Tasya didn't know what to do with her hands. What to do with her feet. Whether to scream or pray.

Then Rurik exploded into a burst of feathers and rose into the air on a hawk's wings.

"No," she whispered. "No!"

She had witnessed the impossible.

Someone grabbed her from behind. "Yes," Sergei whispered back at her. "It's true. You're living your worst nightmare."

Later, she didn't know what she did. She knew her moves: elbow him in the gut, nail him in the instep, twist that hurt wrist. He was a Varinski, but she must have done something, because he was on the ground behind her.

Maybe he wasn't completely impervious to pain.

She stared at the pile of clothes and weapons, Ru-rik's clothes and weapons, left on the ground. She stared at the skies while the two mighty birds of prey circled and slashed.

Their talons were like razor blades.

The hawk was smaller, faster, dashing in, slashing, dashing out.

But the eagle made each swipe count, cutting deep into the hawk. He slashed the wing, the chest. . . . The hawk spiraled downward.

She thought she screamed.

The eagle swooped down for the kill—and right before they hit the earth, the hawk became a man, taking the eagle and rolling, smashing him into the ground with Rurik's man weight on top of him.

The eagle flapped its wings and went still.

Rurik had won, but at a price.

He gasped and writhed, trying to get his breath. He was naked. He was defenseless.

As the blond man watched, his eyes turned to flame. He stripped off his clothes—my God, he was bigger and more muscular than she'd realized—and Tasya saw his transformation start.

A wolf. He was a wolf. His snout grew long; his teeth lengthened; the pale hair on his head covered his face and neck and down his back.

He'd used the eagle to wear Rurik down. Now he intended to finish Rurik off.

So Tasya lifted her backpack and smashed him across the face. It must have been her heavy-soled boots hanging

by a strap that took him out. Or maybe it was her canteen, half-filled with water. For a vital few seconds, he hit the dirt and didn't move.